A liquid processing apparatus usually uses one or more liquid processing media to process various liquid, such as water, and alcohol, etc., and usually includes one or more liquid processing units accommodating a liquid processing medium. When liquid passes through the liquid processing medium, impurities and contaminants therein are removed by physical and chemical reactions with the liquid processing medium. A typical example of such a liquid processing apparatus is an apparatus for purifying and softening water, such chemical contaminants and particle contaminants and the like in the liquid as chlorides, heavy metals, and sulfides are removed on the one hand, and calcium, and magnesium, etc. in the water are removed on the other hand, so that the water is softened. Such liquid processing apparatuses may provide purified water suitable for direct drinking and washing water for families, and become important articles for family lives.
A softening apparatus is substantially unique means for processing hard water for a long time, and some other substitutional means, such as a magnetic device, an electromagnetic device, an RF device, and a catalytic agent, are not proven to be effective. A template-assisted crystallization (TAC) emerged in these years is a very effective fluid processing medium, which uses special polymer particles as a fluid processing medium to make hard water mineral substances (such as CaCO3) in water to settle in forms of innocuous inactive micro crystallized particles and attach to surfaces of the polymer particles, separate from the polymer particles when they grow into certain sizes and go back into the water, and suspend in the water in forms of nonreactive nonadhesive crystal particles, thereby efficiently avoiding formation of scales. Thus, a processing system of the TAC type is different from a conventional fluid processing system, does not block hard water mineral substances, and only makes the hard water mineral substances to become crystal particle forms.
An example of a fluid processing system using the TAC technology is a system using Next-ScaleStop as fluid processing media. According to international operating rules for avoiding scales, an efficiency percentage of the Next-ScaleStop fluid processing media reaches 96%, and is more effective than other water softeners. Advantages of the Next-ScaleStop exist in: (1) needing no chemicals, hence, it is relatively environmentally protective; (2) providing scale prevention protection for a whole house; (3) a life of the medium is long, and is not consumed due to reaction; (4) beneficial mineral substances in water will be reserved; and (5) there exists no sense of adhesion and smoothness like that in softened water. The Next-ScaleStop fluid processing media are polymer particles, a size of which being 0.55˜0.85 mm (about 20×40 mesh), and a bulk density being about 0.67 kg/l.
In the TAC water softening technology, there exist nucleation parts of atomic sizes on surfaces of the used polymer particles (or polymer beads) (such as Next-ScaleStop). In these parts, solved hard water substances are transformed into micro “seed crystals”. Once the seed crystals are produced and grow into a certain size, they will be brought away from the surfaces of the polymer particles by water flowing through the template-assisted crystallization (TAC) fluid processing medium accommodated in a bed volume unit. Hence, action mechanisms of the TAC water softening technology are generally as follows: (1) solved hard water substances on surfaces of polymer particles having many nucleation parts are transformed into micro “seed crystals”; (2) as 10% growth of the seed crystals needs several hours, if water supply is stopped for the whole night, sizes of the seed crystals released from the TAC bed column are slightly larger than those of normal seed crystals, and after several minutes later of the water flow, at various flow rates, sizes of the seed crystals released from the particle surfaces of the TAC bed column become normal again (with a range of variation of within 10% only); and (3) newly-produced seed crystals adhere to the nucleation parts of atomic size and grow larger, until they are washed into the water flow, and a rate of release of the seed crystals is proportional to a flow rate of the water.
Furthermore, structures of many liquid processing apparatuses are disclosed in the related art. For example, patent document 1 (U.S. Pat. No. 4,617,117) discloses a liquid processing apparatus. FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of the liquid processing apparatus of patent document 1. As shown in FIG. 1, the liquid processing apparatus includes a housing 1, an inlet 7 and an outlet 12 being provided on a bottom of the housing 1, an accommodation cavity 2, an inflow passage 8, an outflow conduit 10 and an outflow passage 11 being provided within the housing 1. During use, a liquid flows in from the inlet 7, and enters into the accommodation cavity 2 through the internal inflow passage 8; and when a level of the liquid is higher than an upper end opening of the outflow conduit 10, the liquid enters into the outflow conduit 10, and flows to the outlet 12 through the outflow passage 11.
As shown in FIG. 1, the liquid processing apparatus further includes a cover 16 and a sealing portion 17; wherein, the sealing portion 17 is provided at a top of the housing 1, and an O-shaped seal ring 6 is provided between the sealing portion 17 and an inner wall of the housing 1, so as to seal the accommodation cavity 2; and the cover 16 is located at an upper part of the sealing portion 17, and is used to cover and protect an upper end part of the housing 1.
Furthermore, liquid filters of different structures or filter core structures are respectively disclosed in patent document 2 (CN102271778A), patent document 3 (CN202478706U), patent document 4 (CN202620810U), and patent document 5 (CN103286003A).
It should be noted that the above description of the background is merely provided for clear and complete explanation of the present disclosure and for easy understanding by those skilled in the art. And it should not be understood that the above technical solution is known to those skilled in the art as it is described in the background of the present disclosure.